Broader, bolder, but not better

Providing social services — parenting classes, health care, nutrition help, afterschool programs and more — hasn’t improved achievement for students at Harlem Children’s Zone‘s Promise Academy, concludes a Brookings study. The zone’s six-year-old charter school, which includes an elementary, middle and high school, outperforms the New York city average, when adjusted for demographics. But its performance is only average — a bit higher in math, lower in reading — compared to Bronx and Manhattan charter schools that offer no social or community services. (Scores were adjusted for student poverty levels and the percentage of black, Hispanic and limited English proficient students.)

Zone founder Geoffrey Canada has raised $100 million in private donations to improve the neighborhood and create better schools. However, Promise Academy students living in the zone, who were eligible for the full range of services, did no better than classmates living outside the zone, who received only the chance to attend the charter school, according to a Harvard study. In other words, the school alone made a difference.

There is no compelling evidence that investments in parenting classes, health services, nutritional programs, and community improvement in general have appreciable effects on student achievement in schools in the U.S.

. . . there is a large and growing body of evidence that schools themselves can have significant impacts on student achievement. The most powerful educational effects over which we have any societal control occur within the walls of schools. They are the effects produced by good teachers, effective curriculum, and the changes in leadership, management, culture, and time to learn that are incorporated into schools that beat the odds, including successful charter schools.

Improving neighborhoods is a desirable goal, but it’s not education reform, Whitehurst and Croft write. And it’s very expensive.

Inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone, President Obama is seeking $210 million to create Promise Neighborhoods in 20 cities. That’s not enough to replicate the web of services provided in Harlem, the authors write. If the goal is better schools, the money should be spent on creating better schools.

Inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone, President Obama is seeking $210 million to create Promise Neighborhoods in 20 cities.

Oh my God! It’s the Model Cities program all over again.

For those who weren’t alive at the time, the Model Cities program was part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. The original plan was to send lots of federal money to a few low income areas, and show how a coordinated plan of government action could lift an area out of poverty. In the words of Wikipedia, “The program’s initial goals emphasized comprehensive planning, involving not just rebuilding but also rehabilitation, social service delivery, and citizen participation.”

However, in order to get the plan through Congress, the money had to be spread around to many Congressional districts. Begun in 1966, the Model Cities program never came close to achieving its original vision. It was ended in 1974.

[…] Provding social services doesn’t improve school achievement, according to a Brookings Study that looked at a charter school in the Harlem Children’s Zone. The zone’s six-year-ol charter school, which is growing into a K-12, does better than traditional public schools but is “middling” compared to Bronx and Manhattan charters serving similar students, concluded Russ Whitehurst and Michelle Croft. […]